I love all things history! My love first began as a small child's curiosity to 'find the real King Arthur,' but quickly I found that this singular quest led me into the exciting and complex world of the past. Feverously, I began to explore the histories of England, backwards and forwards in time--until I realized England did not exist in a bubble. For decades I devoured athenaeums which permitted me to traverse the histories of each European and Asian civilization, eventually developing a fascination for how the events of each civilization or peoples impacted the furtherance of or destruction of another. I began to realize that in almost all events war--the anticipation of, the preparation for, the fighting of, and the resulting aftermath--had reverberant and profound impacts on the future histories of the world's civilizations as both a destructive and creative force. This then seduced me into the study of the history and psychology of not only warfare and its warriors, but of the peacemakers and the avoidance of war. This research topic served as an ingress to my Master's Degree in Military History. It was during this time that I became immersed in the American wars and their relevance to understanding our nation of today and, as a result, continued on my cognitive journey with post-Grad studies in the American Revolution and Civil Wars.

As a child, I was preoccupied with the fantastic historical stories I read and searched ever further to know more peoples and events of antiquity. However, as an adult, it became more of a pursuit of understanding and finally, an eagerness to pass on my learned knowledge to others--especially high school students, who very shortly would be entering the world not just as adults, but as citizens of both their country and the globe. I feel that I have been given a gift and a responsibility to take what many of these students perceive as dry dates, events, and people who bear no relevance to their world of today and teach them how each of their lives and futures are intrinsically linked to the historic past. Learning and understanding history is our future generations' most powerful tool!